Dancing with Death
by Bubblebu
Summary: "Hello? What on earth are you doing here? Didn't you get the memo?" Jeremy Fitzgerald is a strong man with stronger enemies. All he needs is a little bit of money to pay off his debts & live a life of freedom again. The newly-rebuilt pizzeria in town should be a walk in the park, right? Unless, that is, there are ten secrets plaguing the place. But they never mentioned an eleventh.


It's not like Jeremy _wanted _to work at the 'new-and-improved' Freddy (Faz)Fuckbear's Pizzeria.

Okay, maybe the little kid part in him did. Those new animatronics were damn cool.

But the sane, adult part of him knew that it was a terrible, terrible idea to apply for a job. It _seemed _safe enough, that's for sure. Everyone was raving about it. Even that troubled day guard, Mike Schmidt, who was apparently the last night guard, who had complained about the 'terror' of the animatronics, had calmed down or something or other.

Riiiiiiight.

Jeremy hadn't anticipated _ten _animatronics to be running around like little kids (pun very much intended, thank you very much). Hell, he hadn't even expected _one _to be running around.

But they didn't tell him about an eleventh.

They never told anyone, really.

Seemed the only ones who knew about it were the ones who refused to ever bring it up. It's not like it really did anything, right?

* * *

><p>Jeremy rolled his dark emerald colored eyes as he marched into the pizzeria. Blah, blah, blah, he was told to come during business hours to check out the place, get a basic idea of the whole area, etc., etc.<p>

A short, thin girl with bleached blonde hair stumbled up to him, a jester-like smile painted on her face; on her name tag read 'Marie'. She was dressed in the kind of attire you'd expect from a Chuck-E-Cheese restaurant reject employee – she wore a dark blue polo shirt that had a crest of the Freddy Fazbear logo in the corner, which was a pizza with a picture of Freddy's head within it, surrounded by text of the restaurant's name, a cap of the same color that had the words "LET'S EAT!" in thick yellow print, and a button pinned beside her name tag that read "WAITRESS".

"Hiiiii, I'm Maaa-rrieeee, and I'm going to be showing you around here today." The blonde flashed a bright smile. "Jeremy, right?"

"Uh… What? Yeah." Jeremy ignored her, looking around the place; it was a lot bigger than the old building's layout, that's for sure.

"Okay, Jeremy. Follow me." Marie turned on her heel and strutted down the main entrance and into what appeared to be a large party room accompanied by a stage with three toy-looking animatronics standing silently; no kids were here yet, so he figured that once they came is when they would be started up. Scattered around the stage were dozens of those tall video game stands – even Pac-Man was among them.

"Okay, so there's Bonnie bunny," She pointed to the blue animatronic. Jeremy drifted off and ended up ignoring every single word the bleached blonde said.

_So do they actually walk around during the day or what? _Jeremy brushed his hand through his dark honey-colored hair, nodding along to Marie's speech as if he were listening.

"Jeremy." Marie snapped suddenly, her dark brown gaze hard. "I said come on."

Jeremy's eyes flickered to meet hers, and he jumped slightly in realization. "Oh! Right." He sputtered, following her as she walked off.

"These are just spare party rooms." Marie stated, walking through several different rooms without stopping before she finally came to a halt near a small booth. "This is the prize counter." Marie motioned to the long booth, the wall behind it littered with toys and a cotton-candy machine that rested alongside an ice cream cart.

"This is where the magic lurks." Marie grinned, and walked over to a large gift box, struggling to lift off the lid. "This marionette," She motioned to the eerie-looking black animatronic that wore a white mask, "Is what makes kid's dreams come true. We call him Harlequin. Or just Harley." The beach blonde shrugged.

"Harlequin – Err, Harley – Makes kid's dreams come true?" Jeremy rose a brow, crossing his strong arms.

"Okay, so maybe I over exaggerated… He really just hands out prizes because we – the employees – all have to take care of other parts of the building, and we don't have time to run from a party room to the stage area to check up on the kids, and to the prize corner, considering there are only a few people who work here. So Harley here does the job for us." Marie smiled warmly, placing the stringed animatronic back in the box and placing the lid back on.

"Why don't you just, I don't know, hire more people? That is absolutely ridiculous. I mean.. a robot doing your job? How does that even work?" Jeremy commented rashly, rolling his dark forest green eyes.

"You don't get it, do you?" Marie smiled, shaking her head. "Nobody is crazy enough to work here. You're literally the only night guard here. I'm just lucky I got the day shift."

"You still didn't answer my question." Jeremy scoffed.

"Whatever. See, we have a control system in our back room where the spare parts are. There's this box that specifically for the robots in the whole parlor. It connects to all the animatronics, obviously. We flip certain switches that connect to certain animatronics to turn them on – Harley has his own section, since the prize counter is more complex than you may think. You know, kids these days. Like the other animatronics, he has a voice recognition system, but it recognizes certain demands. Ask it for cotton candy, then it will place out some random device thingy to collect your tickets you earn from the games by the stage area and the balloon room, and then it works its magic to get you your treat. Boom. Robots are great."

Jeremy gaped. "Damn… How many animatronics are there, even?"

Marie winced, averting his gaze. "For the public? Five. Literally? Ten. Well – eleven."

Jeremy narrowed his eyes suspiciously, his crossed arms tightening. "What are the others?"

Marie's jaw went taut. She opened her mouth to reply but it soon snapped shut once more. "You're a nosy one, aren't ya?" She muttered. "If you really want to know, I'll show you." The bleached blonde shoved past him, her cheeks puffed in irritation. Jeremy raised a brow but followed her anyway.

"This is the kid's cove, for the toddlers, obviously. It's also a party room for the little tykes, with easier access to bathrooms and smaller stools and tables. Over there is another section, specifically for video games. We employees call it the balloon room, but the official name of it is, put simply, the Game Area." Marie motioned to the two rooms connected to each other.

Jeremy glanced at the two rooms, then stiffened suddenly, his emerald eyes widening in horror. "What the hell is that?" He hissed, stepping back.

"What?" Marie looked at him in surprise. "Oh, wait, that? That's the Mangle." The blonde seemed unfazed and indifferent about the mashed-up animatronic.

Jeremy approached it, kneeling down to look at it. Slowly, he ducked an arm out, raising one of the robot's limp steel arms. "Why the hell is it in the toddler party room, then?" He growled. "It's totally not gonna give three-year-olds nightmares for life."

"It's sort of like a take-apart-put-back-together attraction, thank you very much." Marie rolled her big, dark chocolate brown eyes. "Now come on. We've still got some exploring to do."

Jeremy stood, not taking his dark shining green eyes off of Mangle. Now that he looked at it, it kinda looked like a fox. He sighed sharply and followed Marie down the short hallway into the balloon-filled room.

"Holy fuck." The dark lemon-haired man jumped at the animatronic right at the corner. "What-"

Marie looked at him with a bored expression. "What the fuck is that? It's Balloon Boy."

Jeremy looked at her with widened eyes.

"Why the hell is he here? I literally have no idea. He scares everyone. Come on." Marie strolled past the tall isles of video games and through a door labeled '_**EMPLOYEE PERSONEL ONLY. NO PUBLIC PATRONS PERMITTED. GO BACK TO HAVING FUN!**_'

Jeremy followed her uncertainly, his dark mystic green eyes cloudy. Marie pulled out a key from her pocket and waved it at him a little. "You wanted to see the animatronics? Well, here you go." She plucked a certain key and turned it through the lock, the door croaking and groaning as it swung open.

Marie flipped on the light switch, seemingly holding her breath as she looked at the small, stuffy room.

Jeremy poked himself in, gaping at the room, his jaw suddenly going taut. Littering the room were four animatronics. On a wall sectioning away from the animatronics was a huge control panel.

"You said there were eleven. Where's the other one?" Jeremy glanced back at Marie as she walked into the room beside him.

"Oh! I almost forgot." Marie scurried to a small closet, unlatching the lock quickly; it wasn't a lock that could be opened with a key, oddly. It was a long steel board that could be lifted up from a small handle that latched the door shut.

Marie flicked the closet light on, looking at the stiff animatronic. "This is Doll. You'd think that with all the money we leaked in to make Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria 'perfect' that they would fix her up. Guess not." Marie shook her head. "She was a favorite of many, I heard."

Jeremy stiffened at the sight of the taut robot. It was a deer, that was obvious; she resembled a flapper girl from the twenties. Doll had the marking of a natural deer, which was en-deer-ing (not even sorry for the pun), and she wore a large, pink shimmering band around her forehead that had an artificial magenta rose attached to it, and behind the flower was a long, shiny feather of the same shade of bright pink. Around the doe's neck was an assortment of fake pearl necklaces, and a shimmering, slightly sequined, fluffy boa rested around her shoulders. She appeared to be wearing some form of makeup (fit for animatronics, not humans, of course), and had enlarged eyelashes.

Down the creamy chest of the deer which was a much lighter shade of brown than the rest of the animatronic's body was a long gash, revealing her endoskeleton, with dozens of wires dangling out limply. Someone had tried to sew it back together with glitzy and glamorous shiny pink thread to hide the problem in 'pretty packaging' but to no avail.

"Why is she locked up in here?" Jeremy grumbled, looking up and down the robot. Marie shrugged.

"To be honest, I don't know. She's not dangerous or a hazard or anything; I think it's just because she's broken beyond repair."

Jeremy looked at her thoughtfully, silently pleading for her to continue.

Marie sighed. "Well, Doll had her own section in the older version of the pizzeria, kinda like Foxy did. In her time – 1981, mind you – her design was much ahead of its time. She could dance and sing and talk and walk around, too, and she was a lot more flexible than the other animatronics. Unlike the other robots, she didn't have a stand that she was attached to, to move around with. The stands were like little platforms that the animatronics were stuck on that had wheels at the bottom, letting them move around with remote controls. Doll and Foxy were created at the same time, so neither of them had stands, and didn't have to be controlled with remotes, so it was like magic to the kids."

"One day, in '86, someone partied too hardy and shoved her off the stage. Fell right on the edge of a table, broke her insides completely and cracked her endoskeleton. Doll was a personal favorite of many, because of her joy of singing and dancing, so they tried to make the problem look pretty by sewing her up with pretty thread. Didn't work. She was very slow, and her singing & speech came out warbled and unintelligible. So they tossed her away in a supply closet."

Jeremy was staring at Marie with widened eyes, signs of obvious interest. "Wow. That's… dark? I don't know." The dark honey haired blonde mumbled, shaking his head. Marie's cheeks puffed slightly as she stifled and held back laughter, but she suddenly fell into a fit of hysterical laughs.

"What?" Jeremy huffed irritably. "What did I say? What am I missing?"

"If you think _that's _dark, I can't wait for you to find out about the bite of '87!"

* * *

><p>Jeremy whistled as he strolled into Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, a content expression on his face. His whole tour through the place with Marie was so… bizarre. Despite her petite exterior, Marie had a dark sense of humor Jeremy couldn't relate to anyone else's. She kinda seemed secretive, too; it was weird.<p>

"Women." He scoffed as he collapsed into the office chair.

* * *

><p><strong>12:20 A.M.<strong>

**Full Flashlight Power**

Jeremy was wide awake; he was used to pulling all nighters. He did it all the time in high school (given he was throwing parties, getting drunk and high, and having sex, of course). He did it often in college. He could easily do it here without a sweat.

Jeremy didn't even blink as the phone shrilly rang.

"_Uh, hello? Hello, hello? Uh, hello and welcome to your new summer job at the new and improved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Uh, I'm here to talk you through some of the things you can expect to see during your first week here and to help you get started down this new and exciting career path._

_Uh, now, I want you to forget anything you may have heard about the old location, you know. Uh, some people still have a somewhat negative impression of the company. Uh... that old restaurant was kind of left to rot for quite a while, but I want to reassure you, Fazbear Entertainment is committed to family fun and above all, safety. They've spent a small fortune on these new animatronics, uh, facial recognition, advanced mobility, they even let them walk around during the day. Isn't that neat? But most importantly, they're all tied into some kind of criminal database, so they can detect a predator a mile away. Heck, we should be paying them to guard you._"

_Oh, please. _Jeremy rolled his dark forest-green eyes.

"_Uh, now that being said, no new system's without its... kinks. Uh... you're only the second guard to work at that location. Uh, the first guy finished his week, but complained about... conditions. Uh, we switched him over to the day shift, so hey, lucky you, right? Uh mainly he expressed concern that certain characters seemed to move around at night, and even attempted to get into his office. Now, from what we know, that should be impossible. Uh, that restaurant should be the safest place on earth. So while our engineers don't really have an explanation for this, the working theory is that... the robots were never given a proper "night mode". So when it gets quiet, they think they're in the wrong room, so then they go try to find where the people are, and in this case, that's your office._"

_The hell? _The dirty-blonde haired man thought, perplexed.

"_So our temporary solution is this: there's a music box over by the Prize Counter, and it's rigged to be wound up remotely. So just, every once in a while, switch over to the Prize Counter video feed and wind it up for a few seconds. It doesn't seem to affect all of the animatronics, but it does affect... one of them. Uh, and as for the rest of them, we have an even easier solution. You see, there may be a minor glitch in the system, something about robots seeing you as an endoskeleton without his costume on, and wanting to stuff you in a suit, so hey, we've given you an empty Freddy Fazbear head, problem solved! You can put it on anytime, and leave it on for as long as you want. Eventually anything that wandered in, will wander back out._"

Jeremy stiffened. He slammed mute on the office phone. He didn't need to hear this.

* * *

><p><strong>2:09 A.M.<strong>

**¾ Flashlight Power**

Okay.

So the animatronics moved.

No biggie.

Except it was.

Jeremy wasn't exactly afraid; I mean, yeah, animatronics that moved when their switches were clearly switched off, whoop-dee-fuckin'-doo, but that didn't give him any reason to be acting like a pansy.

Regardless of which, he was still rattling with fear.

The animatronics kind of seemed, well, curious, maybe. They stuck their faces in all of the cameras, blinking and breathing slowly, trying to figure it out. All animatronics were off the stage, wandering around the building.

Trying to find the people.

In this case, Jeremy himself.

Jeremy felt like the guy in that two-sentence thriller story; "_The last man on earth is alone in a room. He then hears a knock on the door._"

He was the last person in the pizzeria, and soon enough, in due time those animatronics would come knocking, too.

* * *

><p><strong>5:48 A.M.<strong>

**¼ Flashlight Power**

Jeremy was using up his flashlight power faster than he would have liked.

He realized that if the animatronics were in the hall, that they would recoil to the on-and-off flash of the flashlight, and stalk away.

Didn't seem to work in the vents, though.

New-Bonnie was on his right, crawling through ever so slowly. Jeremy was shaking now, worse than he ever had been. Every time the thin metal of the air vent creaked or groaned or croaked or made a noise under Bonnie's weight, he'd only get more and more frightened.

Carefully, Jeremy flashed the light.

He jumped back in the chair to see the blue plastic-looking animatronic rabbit's head close to sticking out of the vent. Jeremy desperately fumbled to get the empty Freddy head. At last, he smacked the empty head onto his own, trembling.

The lights in the office rattled and flickered; Jeremy could clearly hear his own heavy, hoarse, fearful breathing in the 'helmet', which came out in rasped, uneven patches. He didn't know why, but tears stung in the very corners of his eyes, and sweat trickled from his from his temple. Jeremy held his breath to hear the final squeak of the air vent before a loud thump echoed within the office.

Jeremy's dark emerald-colored eyes widened in both horror & terror to see Bonnie slowly pass right in front of him; the robot was very, very close, his bright green eyes wide. Jeremy forced his eyes shut, and peeked them open again as the flickering of the lights subsided.

As Jeremy slowly took off the empty Freddy head, several beeps of warning emitted from the remote control used to wind up Harlequin's music box. Jeremy scrambled for the remote, but the beeping was cut short as a bell rang through the building.

It took Jeremy a moment to realize what was going on, but it soon hit him like a bus of relief. "YES!" He shouted, tossing his fists into the air triumphantly.

He had survived his first night.

* * *

><p><strong>Hey lovelies! It's Bubblebu with you, with the first chapter of my new FN F fic that I mentioned. I know I said I wouldn't include anyone from Alex and Dani's universe, but... Marie was too irresistible to ignore. Besides, I wanted her to have more development aside from just being the waitress that was mentioned only ONE time in the previous fic.<strong>

**So in this new fic, badass jock Jeremy Fitzgerald doesn't give two whats about Freddy Fuckbear's new-and-improved Pizzafuckeria. Except Doll the Doe. Something about her broken, 20s-style, sad flapper girl vibe sends out bad beats. And Bonnie is making him very uncomfortable.**

**Very. Uncomfortable.**

****What's Jeremy gonna say to Marie? **When will Doll make her official, official, OFFICIAL debut, and give Jeremy a scare? Stay tuned for another chapter of Dancing with Death! (Or since you guys know I like to abbreviate my titles, DW/D)**

**Extra:**

**Don't worry, my Bubblebabes! I'm writing the one shots for Friends Don't let Friends do Stupid Jobs as fast as I can! Expect them to come by Thanksgiving! ;]**


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